


gone loose inside the shell

by cyanides



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dubious Consent, Erotically Charged Murder Fantasies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:53:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25800007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanides/pseuds/cyanides
Summary: No,he thinks, as the blood cools on his arms and Alex Rider's body sags, a dead weight in his grip.Not like this.
Relationships: Julius Grief | Julius Greif/Alex Rider
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	gone loose inside the shell

**Author's Note:**

> Julius is a human trainwreck, and I love him desperately after rereading Scorpia Rising and seeing Otto Farrant's portrayal of him. I just want him to live his best life. So: canon divergence after Point Blanc!

Julius adjusts the rifle on his shoulder and sets his eye to the scope. It's a good weapon. Through the scope, he can make out every strand of Alex Rider's fair hair rustling in the breeze, the way his eyes sweep restlessly across the school courtyard, and the curve of his lips as he murmurs something to himself - though Julius is too high up for the words to carry.

He's certainly too high up for Alex Rider to hear _him_ shifting his weight on the roof. And yet something prompts Alex's gaze to snap up, locking onto Julius with an unswerving precision that makes his throat clench.

Julius squeezes the trigger.

Time seems to slow, to grant him a better view of Alex collapsing - the graceful lines of the body crumpling upon themselves, and the spray of blood that arcs outwards, hitting the ground before the corpse does. Maybe it's Julius's imagination, but he thinks he sees a faint pink mist hovering in the air, drifting to settle on the body like frost.

Savage glee fills Julius's chest; his hands are unsteady as he fumbles to put away the rifle, and he swears under his breath. He needs to get down there, to see up close-

The roof lurches under his feet, and he topples forward before he can stop himself. And suddenly he's falling, plummeting through a grey haze only punctuated by blinking lights and urgent mechanical sounds. He tumbles over and over until the world coalesces around him again and he's lying flat on his back, looking up at a grubby off-white ceiling, as a hospital monitor beeps placidly.

* * *

People come and go. There's a whole roster of doctors and nurses, who stolidly push needles into Julius's skin and change his bandages and tell him that he's sustained severe burns. As though he couldn't figure that out from the pain which sears through his limbs whenever he moves, or the agonising brush of fabric on his exposed skin. 

He says nothing, though. If he stays quiet with them, it's easier to keep that up for the other visitors, who show up with grim expressions and drab suits and flimsy clipboards. They volley the same questions at him every time; the repetition is only spiced up by the mounting frustration in their voices. Julius leans back against his pillow and stares at the ceiling for some better entertainment, letting their words fade to a mosquito's buzz. He can recite the whole litany by now, anyway. _Where were Hugo Grief's operations located? What do you know about his other plans?_

It's all so _boring_. That's the worst part. The boredom is like an itch in Julius's skull, where he can't reach, and it eats at him more than the burns or the needles or the indignity of the younger nurses whispering "poor boy" when they think he's asleep. So he shuts his eyes and slips away from it all.

Where he goes, there are no tubes and cables shackling him to machines. There's no pain - or not for him, at any rate. There's only Alex Rider, looking up at Julius with no trace of fear in those dark eyes, even as Julius cups a hand around the back of his neck and reels him closer.

Of course Alex wouldn't have the decency - or the sense - to be afraid or plead for his life. Even on his knees like this, he's the virtuous hero, the martyr going to the slaughter, full to the back teeth with righteousness. Julius wants to spit.

He winds his fingers roughly into Alex's hair, and watches a wince flit across his face - but it's still not enough. His skin is soft and warm and perfect against Julius's hand, and Julius can feel his pulse ticking under it, still smooth and steady.

Julius brings down the knife.

The flesh parts easily, of course. From the dark jet of blood, the wave of arterial heat spilling across his fingers, Julius knows he's cut into the carotid, just like he was taught. He tugs Alex's head back and watches the wound yawn open wider, mesmerised by the glimmer of wet muscle and what might be the faint gleam of bone. He lets the torrent of blood fountain over his hands and pool at his feet, and he clings to Alex's hair as it grows sodden and matted, until Alex heaves a final gurgling breath and the stoic suffering in his eyes is wiped away by glassy blankness.

This was far too quick. It only dawns on Julius now, as his own pulse pounds hard and fast in his ears, too loud in this stillness. _No,_ he thinks, as the blood cools on his arms and Alex Rider's body sags, a dead weight in his grip. _Not like this._

* * *

They put him on a new course of drugs, which may be why he starts to feel like he's drifting outside himself. Waking up becomes a struggle, like swimming through a swamp, and he's never quite sure if he's broken the surface. Every movement is an effort, with his limbs leaden and sluggish to respond. Even the pain of the burns is dulled now, as though he's feeling it from a distance. 

The doctors seem pleased, he doesn't know whether with his recovery or his quiescence. They let him use the toilet by himself now. He dimly remembers wanting this badly. He's not sure why.

"Pathetic."

The voice is low but clear in the tiny room, and it cuts through the fog in his skull; he jerks his head up, and his eyes catch on the mirror, where someone is looking back at him.

It's not his face. That's the first thought which sinks in. There's something alien about those eyes, the set of the jaw, the way the mouth moves to shape words which Julius can't feel on his own lips. Julius's own face is numb.

"Of course you're giving in," the face says. "That's all you're good for. You'll never be-"

Julius is moving before he realises it, energy coursing through him for the first time in days. Every nerve flares to life as he curls his hand into a fist, swings his arm forward, and punches through the glass.

The mirror shatters, and as the fragments cascade down around Julius, he steps back, panting. Blood is running down his hand, but he ignores it just as he ignores the hurrying footsteps outside. He feels _alive_ like he hasn't for so long, adrenaline singing in his bloodstream. Thoughts have been skidding off the surface of his mind, but now something has stuck - the sharp edges of a name.

Alex Rider. How could he have forgotten? It's always Alex Rider, that hateful face, now sneering up at him from dozens of scattered shards. Fury blazes within Julius, and he clutches it to his heart even as the door is flung open and the needle slides into his arm.

It's a familiar feeling by now, sinking back into the fog, like warm and suffocating clouds closing over him. Sensations recede to the other end of a long tunnel. He struggles fiercely this time to stay upright and keep pushing through the grey miasma, but when he flings himself against anything, it wraps around him, stifling his movement. He can feel his strength ebbing.

Then the mists finally part, and Alex Rider is there.

Once again Julius's body springs into action, quicker than thought. He hurls himself at Alex, and the force of the collision, the impact which knocks the air out of his chest, is the best thing he's felt in weeks. They tumble to the ground, and Julius moves with trained reflexes, straddling Alex, knees pinning his arms. Alex looks up at him with the same contempt from the mirror, and it scorches Julius's skin like acid.

His fingers close around a rough surface, and he brings it up and smashes it against Alex Rider's face.

Alex lets out a choked cry and twists under Julius, but he can't pull his arms free, and Julius swings the rock again and again. There's a roaring in his ears which almost drowns out the wet thud of flesh and the crunch of bone, but he feels the exact moment Alex Rider goes limp under him, like a puppet with its strings cut.

Julius keeps going. He slams the rock into that face until his arm is sore and the stench of copper hangs thick in the air, and then he adds a few more blows for good measure, and finally he lets the rock fall from his cramping fingers. What's left before him is a mess of gore and shattered bone, protrusions where features might once have been. Beneath a smear of blood, the remains of an eye stare at Julius sightlessly. An urge seizes Julius, to dip his fingers into the wrecked flesh where the temple has caved in, and press inside deep enough to touch the warmth of brain matter.

Heat surges through him, crowding into his chest, rising to his head. There's a sickly-sweet taste in his mouth. He sits back on his heels and dry-heaves.

His vision starts to swim, and he can feel everything crumbling away, Alex Rider's body dissolving under him, but he holds fast to the rush of victory as the drowsiness creeps back in.

He wonders what he'd see if he looked in a mirror now - perhaps that broken, mangled face. Or perhaps nothing at all - and something in him stirs queasily at the thought, before all awareness is snuffed out.

* * *

From then on, Julius is careful. He finds ways to discreetly evade doses; his burns ache constantly, but he ignores them. Nothing is worth that grey stupor again. As the haze lifts, it becomes much easier to unobtrusively gather tools - a toothbrush, a pen left by a careless doctor. He sharpens edges. He bides his time. 

It's difficult. Patience has never been his strong suit, and sometimes he feels like the lack of stimulation might drive him out of his skull, quite literally. A knot of impatience throbs hot in his head, like a blood vessel about to rupture. He reassures himself that his chance will come soon enough. Once he's mostly healed, they'll want to transfer him somewhere more secure, where he can be strapped to a chair all day to endure the drone of questions. It won't be long now.

When the time comes, it's barely worth remembering. Years of honed instincts carry him through it - feigned dizziness, a theatrical stagger, the predictable outcome of a sharp object applied directly to throats and eyeballs. It's all so banal Julius could laugh, and in fact he does as he abandons the stolen vehicle, limping only slightly. (The agent's boots were too good to pass up, but just a little too large for him.)

He got no real satisfaction from that fight; there was nothing especially gratifying about the feeling of flesh and bone giving way under his hands. LIkewise, as he makes his way back towards the city, everything around him seems flat and washed-out, like a smudged canvas.

Perhaps it's the residual haze of sedation, but he feels like he's surrounded by a fuzz of static. There's only one signal he cares about, and it remains tantalisingly out of reach. His sleep is brief and fitful, and every night he jerks awake, pulse galloping, when the wind carries the whispers of that voice to his ears.

* * *

When Julius was ten, he received a hunting knife as a reward for his performance in hand-to-hand training. He remembers his delight and the envious glances of his brothers. Some of them took it further than glances, of course, and got a demonstration of the knife up close and personal. Julius was told off for that; even though they had a plastic surgeon on staff, scarring was to be avoided, as a "waste of resources". But they let Julius keep the knife, and he thinks of it now as he huddles under a clump of bushes; he retraces his memories of the finely-balanced weight, the heft of the handle, the keenness of the edge.

The line between sleep and waking has been thin lately, and so it's no surprise when he finds himself prowling through the woods, a familiar weight clasped in his hand. Something is moving a short distance ahead, not as quietly as him. It's too dark to make out much of a silhouette, but he knows instinctively what it is - or rather, _who_. He knows where every footfall will land, even without the telltale sound of twigs snapping; he can sense every breath taken of the night air, as though it's filling his own lungs.

Maybe Alex Rider can sense it too. Maybe that's why his head goes up, like a deer startled by a gunshot, and he breaks into a run.

Julius launches himself into a sprint. It's so good being able to _run_ , his limbs moving fluidly without the dull pain of wounds making themselves felt. For a few moments he luxuriates in the simple fact of the chase - the slight yield of the ground under his feet, and the air cool and sharp against his face. But then his quarry stumbles, and it's all over, as Julius closes the final distance and tackles Alex Rider to the ground.

Alex is faster to react this time; even as he lands, he's bringing his knee up, and it crashes into Julius's sternum, ramming the wind from him. And then his hands are grasping Julius's wrist, prying at his fingers, grappling for the knife like so many hands before. 

Julius lashes out blindly with his other hand, and his knuckles thud against flesh, but there's no satisfying crunch of cartilage. In the dark, Alex laughs breathlessly. "Is that the best you can do?"

Julius tightens his grip. "No," he says, and thrusts the knife through Alex's palm.

Alex screams. His shriek tears through the blackness and ignites a fire in Julius's blood, and he surges forward, slamming Alex flat on the ground. He drives the knife further in, until he feels its tip burrow into the dirt. Alex cries out again.

It's too dark for Julius to really see his face contorted in terror and pain, so instead he shuts his eyes and basks in the heat of Alex's breath, mingling with his own in ragged gulps. This close, he can feel Alex's heart racing in his chest. Every line of his body is rigid now, electric with fear.

Julius yanks the blade from Alex's hand, which gets him another strangled wail. Julius savours it.

"How about this?" he says, and plunges the knife into Alex's gut.

There's no scream this time, only a rattling, airless gasp as Alex writhes under Julius, and yet another as Julius twists the knife, letting it saw through a long expanse of flesh, before finally pulling it free. He feels rather than sees the blood that gushes forth, the heat of it drenching him. Alex's hands fly up to clutch at it.

"No, no," Julius croons, seizing Alex's wrists and pinning them back to the ground, letting his nails dig into the ruined palm, just for the way Alex whimpers, low in his throat. "None of that. I win."

Alex lets out what's almost a sob, and Julius feels laughter bubbling up in him like champagne. He lets it go. He buries his face in the smooth skin of Alex's collarbone and laughs and laughs, even as Alex continues to thrash against him, warm and solid and maddeningly alive despite the blood soaking into the ground. 

Slowly, Julius lowers his full weight onto Alex, ripping another choked cry from him. Julius's head is spinning, and somehow the warmth of blood seeping into his clothes, the firm bulk of Alex under him, every point where their skin is pressed against each other in their tangle of limbs - all of this, rather than grounding him, makes him even more lightheaded. Sparks are dancing up and down his veins.

He aligns his face with Alex's, and now he can make out his features even in the darkness - his eyes are wide and luminous with pain, his cheeks streaked with tears and grime. His breathing is shallow now, and Julius lowers his head to hear it, to chase the last dregs as it fades away. He feels Alex's eyelashes tremble against his cheek, before falling still.

He blinks awake in the dingy pre-dawn, shivering in a light rain. His limbs throb with tension. He is painfully hard.

He's yanking his trousers open before his mind can even catch up. His fingers are clumsy from the cold, but he takes himself in hand, and a few quick strokes have him coming, biting his wrist to muffle his noises. He wipes his hands clean, moving on autopilot, and then lies flat again, willing his breathing back into a steady rhythm.

The urgent need is gone, but something is still gnawing at him. Like every other physical need, he's used to dealing with arousal efficiently and without fuss; it always drains away the instant after orgasm. But now, even as he lets his mind go blank, some hunger stays lodged in him like a splinter. Ripples of heat swarm through him, clamouring for _something_. His fingers twitch restlessly. They can still feel the phantom warmth of blood.

* * *

London gradually settles over the landscape like a thickening fog, and Julius slips right into it. He's vowed to be more careful this time; he'll only watch Alex Rider from a distance, until the right opportunity presents itself. Until then, the goal is to stay unseen.

Still, when Alex steps out of that house in Chelsea, Julius freezes, half-in and half-out of the shadows of the alleyway. His breath hitches, waiting for the familiar moment when Alex will raise his head like he's scenting the air, and turn, his eyes unerringly finding Julius's like a hammer blow.

But the blow never lands. Alex sets off down the street in the other direction. His gaze doesn't even brush past Julius.

Julius lets out a breath. There's a sour taste between his gritted teeth. It might be relief. 

It's fine, he tells himself. This will make it all the better when the time comes. 

He focuses on cataloguing the various differences as he trails Alex - a new haircut (bad) and a new outfit (boring). Of course he's wearing short sleeves, casually flaunting skin unmarred by scars. Julius imagines recreating the long stripes of burns that still ache under his clothes.

Even as Julius shadows his footsteps, it feels surreal being confronted with Alex Rider in the flesh. Julius half-expects him to dissolve under the sunlight at any moment. But instead, over the next few weeks, he comes into sharper focus.

Alex Rider isn't that different from Alex Friend in some ways. Even though he goes to school dutifully, his posture as he's hunched in class whispers discomfort, which rises into a shout when teachers stop him in the hallway. He radiates wariness when other students ask him how he's been. He tenses whenever a car pulls up at the kerb or a stranger's eyes linger too long on him. Julius wonders if he even realises.

But none of this actually stops him. He still wakes up for breakfast, and goes to movies with his housekeeper, and brushes his teeth at night, oblivious to Julius's eyes trained on him. There's no instant of hesitation when Alex glances into a mirror or meets his own eyes in a shop window. His gaze darts across the surface and away, careless, never catching upon - well. Anything that might be lurking in the depths.

Sometimes, watching Alex head home from school, it takes every scrap of Julius's tattered self-control not to step out in front of him. He wants to see the shock fill Alex's face and his eyes go wide with recognition as he takes in the sight before him. More than anything, he longs to watch Alex come apart at the seams, as his reality fractures and folds in on itself. Because of Julius. 

Watch and wait, he tells himself, a mantra that wears increasingly thin as the days drag on. Julius listens to Alex chat with his classmate about some game or other, and even as he sifts through the cadences of the conversation and files away the sound of that laugh, it sets his teeth on edge.

All things considered, he feels much better when Alex leaves the Liverpool Street building with a storm in his eyes.

* * *

"Have you noticed," says Alex Rider, looking around the empty room, "that it's always like this? No plot or setup. Nothing to the scenario. Shows a lack of imagination, I think."

The voice is much better now, Julius notes. The inflection hadn't been quite right previously - the amusement with the underlying note of goading, always prodding for a reaction. This means that it kindles a flare of irritation under his skin, even faster and hotter than before. He bares his teeth. "Laugh while you can."

Alex raises his eyebrows, that infuriating smirk still on his lips. "Thanks. I will."

There's no change in his voice or eyes, no warning except the sudden shift of weight as he swings a kick at Julius - but Julius's body is already moving, bringing his own leg up, and Alex's shin slams against his with a sharp jolt. He takes a moment to enjoy Alex's brief hiss of pain before he crowds in, throwing a punch at Alex's chest. Alex deflects it, of course, with barely any sign of strain. His gaze is hot on Julius's face, glinting bright with mockery.

Julius swings his other fist, and this time there's the thrill of contact, his knuckles bruising themselves against Alex's jaw. Alex's head snaps back, and Julius lunges forward, driving his knee into Alex's gut. He doubles over.

Julius watches him crumpled on the floor for a few seconds, but as much as he relishes the sight of Alex Rider curled up and twitching feebly, it's nowhere near enough. He reaches to grab Alex's shoulder.

Alex uncoils himself in a flash, and his leg comes sweeping up like a whip, too swift for Julius to react before it connects with his stomach. A starburst of pain blossoms in his vision, and he crashes down onto Alex, wrenching a gasp from one of them. Julius isn't sure which. The world tilts as Alex rears up, trying to throw Julius off; he lands a punch, and pain explodes in Julius's side. 

Julius scrambles up Alex's body, knocking away his flailing arms, and seizes Alex's head. Alex's eyes are blazing with contempt, and Julius can feel that sneer mirrored on his own face. Their eyes lock, and Alex's stare burns into him for a paralysing instant, before he slams Alex's skull into the floor.

Alex goes slack momentarily, hands dropping away, and Julius manages to steady himself, just barely. Darkness is eating away at the edges of his sight. He shakes his head to clear it.

Alex moves under him, and coughs. Blood oozes from a gash on his cheek, but that derisive light is still lurking in his eyes, which glance down to where Julius is straddling him.

"This again?" he wheezes. "Really. No imagination."

Julius swipes a hand across the floor, but it stays empty. He drags his gaze away from Alex's face to scan the room, which remains stubbornly featureless. There's nothing else around - just him, muscles trembling from mingled pain and exertion, and the boy under him.

Alex's shoulders heave with a rasping laugh, and Julius feels it shake through him too. "So what's next? You've got me, but now - you really have no idea, do you?" The scornful smile stays poised on his lips, as Julius slowly loosens his grip on Alex's hair and straightens up.

He wraps his hands around Alex's neck and squeezes.

It's amazing how fast the expression cracks. Alex's eyes fly open wide, and the animal panic that floods them sends a peal of vicious satisfaction ringing through Julius. Alex thrashes desperately, but Julius is used to this by now. He slides his knee down between Alex's legs, fitting their bodies together, and bears down on Alex's neck with all his weight. Alex's pulse thrums under his hands, too quick and frantic for Julius to pick out any single heartbeat; it feels like touching a live wire.

He presses his fingers harder against Alex's throat. It yields like wax or clay, and for a wild moment Julius wishes he could dig his fingers in until the flesh gives way entirely. He wants to sink his hands into Alex's flesh, wring it and knead it and mould it into some other form entirely, reshape that mouth and those staring eyes even as they silently beg him to stop.

 _Your turn,_ he thinks dizzily, breathless as though the air is being squeezed out of _him_.

Alex bucks upwards, but his arms are too limp to shove Julius off, and all he does is rock against Julius, bringing their hips flush together. Heat lances through Julius, curling around the base of his spine; he feels himself getting hard, and from the way Alex's throat bobs under his hands, he can feel it too.

Julius doesn't think. He just moves. He thrusts himself against Alex's thigh, again and again, the fever in his veins spiking with every motion. His heart is jackhammering furiously, and the fire is climbing relentlessly in him - both from the friction and the sight of the flush flooding Alex's face, in what might be humiliation or the last spasms of a struggling body. 

Alex is making weak noises in the back of his throat; Julius can feel them fluttering against his palms, as Alex's muscles try to work. He isn't sure if they're protests or pleas. He almost wishes he could hear them better, but he's not letting go. 

Alex brings his hands up again, and this time, they manage to latch onto Julius's forearms. His nails bite into the skin, raking lines of fire down it. The sting is delicious, and it's almost disappointing when Alex's grip loosens. At least his eyes stay fastened on Julius, even as they're clouding over.

Julius's thrusts are speeding up now, losing all sense of rhythm in a frenzied scramble for release. His skin is drawn so tight he feels like he's about to burst. Alex's breath comes in thready stutters; Julius can barely feel the wisp of air on his face.

He tightens his fingers that final notch and watches Alex's eyes go dim, just before his own vision whites out and he shudders awake, eyes wide and unseeing as he comes, hands closing on emptiness.

* * *

Julius wonders if all MI6 missions are this idiotic.

It's been more effort keeping up with Alex than he expected, but he almost welcomes it. It's left little room in his mind for anything else. There certainly hasn't been much time for dreams.

The difficulty isn't so much because it's a complex operation, but because MI6 seems to believe in making the worst decisions with the least information. He's been tailing Alex for days now, watching him navigate a series of increasingly absurd disguises. Alex has a deep well of dubious excuses for being in places he shouldn't, but Julius is more surprised by the fact that people somehow keep falling for them.

But it looks like the well has finally run dry. Now Alex is slumped in a chair, wrists tied behind his back, while several thugs squabble tediously over him. "He said MI6 is on the way", "the kid's just making shit up", boring arguments chasing each other in circles while Julius rolls his eyes. Alex had better drop the unconscious act soon. Julius doesn't want to crouch in this vent for much longer.

It takes the thugs remarkably long to establish that yes, Alex has seen their faces, and no, that is not part of The Plan. There's some further bickering before one of them - presumably the least squeamish - finally draws his gun. Julius presses closer to the grate. Any second now.

The thug steps towards Alex, until he's standing almost directly under the vent. He raises his gun. Alex doesn't twitch.

 _Come on,_ Julius thinks fiercely, _come on-_

The thug's finger moves to the trigger.

Julius is on him before he can pull it. The thug shouts, and the gun goes off with a crack, but Julius knocks him flat to the ground, and a single brutal twist of the neck makes sure he won't be firing again. The others are yelling now, reaching for their weapons, but Julius snatches the dead man's gun and cuts off the uproar with two shots. Every movement is propelled by instinct and training; it's so simple that his thoughts don't filter back in until he's standing among three corpses in an abruptly silent room, his pulse barely a hair faster than usual.

His first thought, as he kicks away the corpse nearest his feet, is _Alex Rider could never do that._

His second thought is _Alex Rider._

Julius whirls to where Alex is still slumped in the chair, head drooping on his chest, face obscured by a sweep of bloodied hair. There's not much blood, and the thug's bullet went wide and buried itself in the wall - but when Julius grabs Alex's shoulders and hauls him upright, his head lolls back. His eyes are closed, his face pale and blank as a sheet.

"Wake up," Julius snarls. Alex doesn't stir. "Wake up and fucking _look at me_ , you-" 

There's no response. Julius slaps him, a glancing blow that rocks Alex back in his seat - but even as Julius flexes the sting from his fingers, Alex's eyes remain shut, his entire body limp. 

Tension is clawing into Julius's temples, sharp and jagged. He swallows the taste of bile in his mouth. Alex Rider can't be dead. Because - he can't. Not like this. Julius won't let him. He _can't_.

He drops to his knees, heavier than he should. Check for breathing, he tells himself, but his own breath is coming in short, frantic bursts, and he has to steady himself. He's close enough to make out the curve of every motionless eyelash, every faint crack on those parted lips. There's a mole that Julius hadn't spotted before, hidden in the shadow just under Alex's jaw. Does he have one too? He's never noticed. His fingertips are trembling slightly as they graze it.

Alex's eyes flutter open, and a wave of relief crashes over Julius, pinning him to the spot. Those dark eyes settle on him, and he watches his reflection swim into focus in their pupils, sees the flicker of dawning recognition. Alex's gaze sweeps over him, eyes widening, and Julius can feel a trail of heat erupt across his skin in its wake. Blood is thundering in his ears.

"Grief?" Alex says hoarsely. "Why-"

That voice seeps into Julius's ears and rattles around his head, multiplying into a chorus. It's a voice he's heard far too many times from the depths of mirrors, or echoing inside his skull on the verge of sleep. _Why are you so weak? Why couldn't you do it? Why, why why why-_

Julius lunges. He's not thinking anything when he slams his mouth against Alex's, only driven by the desperate need to shut him up, stop up the words. Alex's lips are soft, and they part under his - in shock or something else, Julius doesn't care. He presses his advantage, pushing further into the heat of Alex's mouth, his fingers clenching on Alex's jaw. He'll force his way in, kick over all the furniture in Alex's head, tear something from him and leave the rest in ruins. He's going to chase that voice to the source and bite it out, rip it from its roots so it can never whisper maddeningly to him again. Alex's mouth fills with the taste of copper, and so does his own. Blood is slick against his teeth. He doesn't know whose it is. 

He finally pulls away and gulps in a lungful of air, then another, as the room slowly swims back into focus. Alex Rider is sprawled back in the chair, hair dishevelled and eyes dazed. There's a smear of blood bright across his lips.

"You," Julius says, and his voice cracks. He stops, clears his throat, fumbles for the right pitch and intonation. "You'll never forget this."

Alex blinks, the haze clearing from his eyes. His eyes lock on Julius's, and he stares at him like he's seeing him for the first time - not just looking at him, but _into_ him, as though Julius is a puzzle and he's just seen where a piece fits in place. Julius almost wants to break away, but he's transfixed by the molten intensity of that gaze, a wave of electricity rolling down his spine. Vertigo engulfs him, heady and terrifying; he's falling into the depths of those eyes, a darkness with no end.

Alex's lips move, but a door slams outside, and footsteps come pounding down the corridor, drowning out any sounds he might make. The moment stretches out between them, the air electric with words unsaid, before Julius finally wrenches himself away and springs back to the vent. 

It's fine, Julius tells himself as he scrambles through the duct, his skin still prickling from Alex Rider's gaze. This wasn't the right time. Killing Alex Rider then would be letting him off too easy.

No, there's no need to rush it. Julius will figure out something better - and then he'll make sure that they both get what they deserve.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate title: "If there were two clones in a room and one of them killed the other with a rock, would that be fucked up or what?"


End file.
